What’s in Season? January Produce (Plus, a new “shop my kitchen” page!)

Happy New Year, everyone! This monthly guide is coming to you one day late because, well, Champagne. Now that the holiday cookies are all gone, I’m ready to get back to fruits and vegetables. Healthy, detoxifying, feel-good seasonal produce—we’re entering the coldest months for growing, but we still have plenty to choose from.

You’ll find recipes and tips below, as well as a handy graphic at the bottom that you can pin for reference, if you’d like. And for more seasonal recipes, follow my winter recipes board on Pinterest. Thanks again to Becky for letting me base this resource on her “Eat Seasonal” monthly seasonal produce lists.

One more thing—I’ve been working hard on a new resource that I hope you’ll love! I get a lot of questions about which blender I use and whatnot, so I set up a page where you can literally shop my kitchen! You’ll find all the kitchen tools that make cooking healthy easier on my new “shop my kitchen” page.

I only included products that I own and love. I just ordered a few more items to replace stuff I don’t love, so I can test them out before I recommend them. I added a link to the “Shop” underneath my photo in the sidebar, too, so it’ll be waiting there for you when you’re in the market for a new vegetable peeler. Or soup pot. Or waffle iron. (You have a waffle iron, right?) Check it out!

Beets

I’m slowly changing my tune about beets, but I still don’t have any beet recipes on the blog. (Coming soon, I promise.) Beets are tremendously earthy and can be eaten fresh, cooked or roasted. Some, like the golden variety, are pretty sweet. Beets elsewhere:

Brussels Sprouts

My beloved Brussels sprouts are still in season! These poor baby cabbages have been maligned for years because someone decided to boil them to soggy, sulfurous deaths. I absolutely love roasted, caramelized Brussels and super crispy fried sprouts that I order at restaurants every chance I can get. I like to shred sprouts in my food processor and use them in slaws—they’re more fine and less watery than their full-sized cabbage cousins. Brussels Sprouts elsewhere:

cabbage

I just learned that cabbage is in season all year long! Cousin to broccoli, this potent anti-cancerous cruciferous vegetable is great raw, in slaws, roasted in pieces, or chopped and sautéed with olive oil and garlic. Select cabbages with compact heads that feel heavy for the their size. Cabbage generally keeps for a pretty long time in the vegetable crisper, so it’s a good ingredient to keep on hand. Cabbage elsewhere:

Citrus fruits

Citrus shows up every year when the sky goes gray and we’re in desperate need of some bright color. You can find some great grapefruit, lemon, orange, clementine and tangerine in stores right now. I use lemon in my favorite salad dressing, it tastes so fresh! Citrus fruits elsewhere:

kale

We all love kale, and for good reason! It’s tremendously good for you and totally delicious, given the right preparation. Chop kale for stir-fries or a side of greens (sauté in olive oil and garlic), or massage it with a dash of salt for salads (see any of my kale salads for further instruction), or lightly coat roughly chopped kale with olive oil and roast it for kale chips. You can also blend kale into smoothies or juice it. Kale elsewhere:

Leeks

I’ve cooked with leeks before, but they haven’t made it to the blog yet. Leeks are related to onions and garlic and have a mild, oniony flavor. They grow in bundled “leaf sheaths” that look similar to celery stalks. You probably won’t want to cook with the dark green parts, which are pretty tough. They’re pretty difficult to clean because dirt gets in between the sheaths. Here’s how to clean them. Leeks elsewhere:

parsnips

Parsnips are root vegetables that look like off-white carrots with parsley-like, leafy tops. Unsurprisingly, they’re related to both carrots and parsley. Parsnips are usually served roasted or cooked, but can also be eaten raw. They’re particularly high in potassium. I don’t have any parsnip recipes (yet), but I’ll work on that! Parsnips elsewhere:

Pomegranate

I saw pomegranates weighing heavy on trees in Israel in November. Pomegranates yield the most gorgeous, ruby-colored, juicy gems called arils. The only tricky part is getting the arils out of the pomegranate shell and membrane. I’ve tried a few methods and always go back to this one. Another good option? My friend Melissa’s mess-free technique. I love to add pomegranate to salad in place of dried cranberries or add a sprinkling of pomegranate to my oatmeal or yogurt with granola. Pomegranate elsewhere:

potatoes

Who doesn’t love a crispy potato? I sure do. Roasting cubes of potatoes brings out way more flavor than boiling them. Varieties outside of the standard Russet (especially the more colorful potatoes) tend to offer more nutritional value. Buy organic! Potatoes elsewhere:

Turnips

Well, turnips are still foreign to me. Turnips look like white radishes. They often have a cute blush of pink or purple near the top, where the sunlight hit the turnip while it was still in the ground. The larger the turnip, the more intense the flavor. From what I can gather, you’ll probably appreciate the turnip flavor more once it’s been cooked. Turnips elsewhere:

winter squash

True to its name, winter squash is still in season! I’ve seen butternut, delicata, spaghetti, acorn and kabocha lately. Most winter squash (like butternut and kabocha, but not delicata) have thick skins that usually need to be removed. Squash elsewhere:

Thanks for this list, it’s so good to know what to buy when. Fresh food’s the best food! I definitely want to try to incorporate more of these into my diet, such as pomegranate, parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, beets, kale, and leeks. Wow, I just about listed the whole list! Thanks for posting this!

I am new to Cookie and Kate and absolutely love the produce guides. I live in NY where there’s not much local produce during the winter months. This is very helpful to figure out what’s in season. It’s also a big help in trying to figure out what fresh produce will be the most cost effective. Thanks!

Love these guides! Now I can justify my consumption of sweet potatoes by saying they are “in season”! :) also awesome to learn what veggies have peak seasons (like Leeks, never knew they were winter veggies!) As always, thank you for writing this!

Also excited to check out the shop your kitchen feature! I have such bad luck picking my own kitchen wares.

I never understood the North American obsession with adding sugar to sweet potatoes either — it’s a vegetable?! WHY would you put sugar on vegetables? Crispy, salty, spicy sweet potato all the way! Lovely collection and photos as always.

I love this post! I really want to commit to eating more seasonally and local (which should be easy because I’m in Southern California). I’m hoping this will help me to expand my vegetable palate. Having you list, not only the seasonal vegetables, but recipes to go with, is an excellent resource. Also, I like the “shop your kitchen” idea. Thank you!

It’s such a nice idea to remind all what’s seasonal, it can be easy to forget.I am lucky, I get a box of local seasonal vegetables delivered every couple weeks. Some lovely photos and recipes too. I love parsnips, but thinking about it I somehow haven’t written recipes with them yet either. Beetroot, on the other hand I have – if you’d like an easy intro, I have used it in muffins and a nice soup where the flavor is hardly noticeable :)